Secret Six #2

What is the secret?! How many is six?!

Unless you're one of those extravagantly luxurious people who can buy their comic books as soon as they're available and also live on the East Coast, you will invariably receive Secret Six spoilers by following Gail Simone's Twitter account.

Okay, so not all of her Tweets are Secret Six spoilers.

I know the internet isn't very good at fact checking, so let me just point out, right here underneath the photoshopped tweets, that these are not actual Gail Simone tweets. I assure you, even now, somebody will still think they're real because words that aren't part of an image or a tweet or a Facebook status message aren't worth reading. I might as well be typing words that nobody would ever want to read anyway, like "Your grandmother masturbated" or "Your genitals touched your mother's vagina while you were being born." What is the secret?!

At the end of the last issue, Catman and his new friends were trapped under the ocean in an electrified box with a digital display asking, "What is the secret?" They were also given masks and a dead body as hints or clues to the mystery. Being that I'm currently enrolled in the Trixie Belden School of World's Greatest Detectivanting*, I think I've got this mystery solved. The masks show that everybody in the room has a secret identity. The dead body proves that one of the people is not who they say they are! So the secret is that one of them is not who they say they are and is probably the person behind the trap and is also probably The Batman.

*Detectivanting: The art of doing detective work while gallivanting around the globe having grand, sexy adventures.

Oh! Mockingbird was the secret figure at the heart of the original Secret Six! You know, the one that was all white people long before Gail Simone made it all crazy people! There may have been a Mockingbird in Gail Simone's previous run as well but I haven't read it yet, so you'd know better than I would.

Cats love to eat birds. What is the secret?!

Catman remembers being recruited to lie in a hole for a year. I have to say, Project: Mockingbird sounds a little bit like a pretentious art installation, or shitty non-magic magic trick. It's possible that when Catman tried to bite the project's director's fingers off, he was kicked off of the project. But that was eighteen months ago! I think Catman has been re-recruited for another try at getting Project: Mockingbird out of the nest.

The six prisoners have one more minute to answer the question, "What is the secret?" If nobody can answer the super vague question, one of them will die. I think the whole point of this project is to get them to begin confessing all sorts of horrible crimes. They'd be better off keeping their mouths shut and their notepad pages blank than implicating themselves. Then after the minute is up, just choose Private Investigator Balloon Boy to be killed.

When the voice said they only had one minute left, I was getting excited that the secret would be revealed this issue! But with all of these flashbacks to Catman in captivity, I don't think that's going to happen. Plus it's only Issue #2 and when has a comic book ever made a big revelation two issues in?

Dude, you're Catman! Don't think of it as being confined! Think of it as being inside the best box of all the boxes that ever boxed! You're king of the boxes!

The minute passes without anybody even taking a stab at a guess. Come on, guys! At least try to save your own lives! I've made more guesses than you idiots and my life isn't even currently in danger. But the threatening voice doesn't seem to be in any hurry for the contestants to self-eliminate, so the secreted six talk about escaping while the voice blah blah blahs in the background.

Catman realizes The Ventriloquist is telekinetic and suggests she raises the box out of the ocean. But she'll only do that if he gives her a kiss. That's prostitution!

That's also talent! I wonder if she can make Ferdie talk while giving oral? What is the secret?!

While in captivity eleven months ago, some woman stops by on Caturday to give Catman a kitten. I bet she's Mockingbird! Or the kitten is! Or Catman is and he's doing this to himself! What is the secret?!

So anyway, the voice begins shocking Black Alice because nobody in the box would choose a scape goat. That's when The Ventriloquist raises the box out of the sea and saves the day! Maybe. Raising the box at least seems to have cut off power to the electrified floor. Also, the box is shaped like a coffin which I called last issue. Grandmaster Comic Book Reader! What is the secret?!

The Not-So-Secreted-Anymore Six break out of the coffin, jump to an ocean drilling rig, and begin killing everybody in the vicinity. Not just because they're nearby but also because they have guns and they keep trying to kill the good guys. The bad guys. The girls and guys guys. And the puppet!

The voice somehow thinks that telling them to get back in the box will work. It points out that one of them killed an innocent girl two years ago and that if they just get in the box, only one of them will die. But if they remain out of the box, they will all die. So the Six decide to stick together and fight to live. Sounds to me like the experiment worked perfectly, you manipulated assholes. Now you're a group as to where there was no group bond before! Project: Mockingbird has started!

Secret Six #2 Rating: +1 Ranking. You know what the real secret is? What happened to Catman's kitty cat? And what was its name? And did it like burrowing under covers and waking him up by biting him on the nose? Did it tend to spaz out for no reason at all and try to jump up the wall and through the ceiling to get at some invisible, other worldly something that only it could see? How about giving us the important information about the best character in the comic book so far, Gail and Ken? What is the secret?!

Secret Six #1

Oh boy! The Secret Six! My favorites! But who are these idiots on the cover?!

I can't wait to read more adventures about Mockingbird and his or her team of press-ganged misfits roaming the world battling Communism and the Mafia! And probably other nefarious groups that really aren't much of a threat anymore if they even exist at all. I especially like Crimson Dawn, ex-prostitute turned model, who does Mockingbird's bidding lest Mockingbird turn her over to Scotland Yard for having killed a pimp with a karate chop! But maybe my favorite member is Dr. August Durant, government physicist, whose drink was spiked by those awful Russkies! Dr. Durant swallowed a genetically engineered bacteria that turned him into...well, I don't what it turned him into because Mockingbird gave him the cure before it could turn him into it! But if he ever stops working for Mockingbird, Mockingbird will withhold the antidote and it'll be time to learn what that Communist bacteria might do!

I bet the secret is that one of these six is actually Mockingbird! And the secret within the secret is that Mockingbird is from...GASP...the Preboot Universe!

I know this is The New 52 version of The Secret Six so Gail Simone might take a few liberties with the crew. But she'll have to at least keep King Savage, ace pilot turned stunt man that just knows how to make all the ladies feel like super ladies. He's indebted to Mockingbird for rescuing him from a North Vietnamese interment camp where he spilled all kinds of national secrets and probably told them how to defeat capitalism through heavy inflation, low minimum wages, and a lack of taxation on the ultra-wealthy! The cad! No way can Gail Simone forget him! He's a white heterosexual manly male! He's a sure in on the new team!

I can't wait to see how Gail handles the characterization of Lili de Neuve, convicted of murder even though everybody knows she's a total pussy cat and couldn't even harm a fake, fuzzy mouse filled with catnip. Wait, a pussy cat would totally harm that. Whatever! She's a sweetheart forced to work for Mockingbird who provided her a fake alibi for the murder she didn't commit! Using her incredible make-up skills, she makes sure every member of the team looks good in any kind of light. You won't catch a male member of her team looking like David Finch drew him! And you'll also only ever catch the female members of the group looking as if David Finch drew them!

This is just the type of group that Gail Simone loves to write too! How could you get any more diverse? You have a blonde white French woman and a red headed white English woman and a red headed white American man and a brown haired white American man and a black haired African-American man, and an Italian stage magician!

I know that lead guy was called "Agent Robbins," but I bet that's Mike Tempest's code name! And they're going to bust that shaggy haired hippie for burning too bright in the eyes of both sexes! Go get him, guys!

For some reason, the hippie beats the snot out of the heroes of the comic book. Hunh. That hardly ever happens unless the hero is Aquaman. This Thomas Black fellow must be one of those super villains. The Secret Six never were too handy going up against meta-types! They were more the group you called when a particular problem called for a boxer, a pilot, a model, a physicist, a make-up artist, and a magician. You'd be surprised how often each of those skills were needed in non-Superhero comic books during the Preboot years. I mean the Pre-Crisis years. I mean the pre-pre-pre-Crisis years but just post-Comic-Book-Code-Authority years! Before that, usually the only skill you needed was a gun with the safety switched off.

The "state troopers" fight like garbage so I'm beginning to think they're not part of The Secret Six. Sometimes The Secret Six likes to become the Not As Secret Two Dozen so that there are more targets for their enemies to shoot at.

Yeah! Send Lili! And Carlo! And August! And King! And most of all, Crimson Dawn!

I wonder if the Secret Six ever crossed over with the Sea Devils?

That would have been a confusing crossover! They'd all have to wear name tags. The only two that don't look alike are August and Little Nicky!

This issue is called "One Less Mouth to Feed" which reminds me of that time Cerebus through the baby and gave that good advice about one less mouth to feed being one less mouth to feed. And also the wisdom about how God hates poor people and loves rich people which is why rich people are rich and poor people are poor. Can't argue with that!

Remember when Cerebus was one of the most well crafted stories in the comic book kingdom until Dave Sim self-destructed? That was entertaining. The comic book was entertaining too!

After the shaggy man kills the man calling for help, I begin to suspect that Gail Simone isn't basing this comic book on the original Secret Six at all! That's crazy! There's so much potential for a modern reworking of the team! Oh well. I guess I'll just have to be content with my original Secret Six fanfiction and try to enjoy whatever this mess is based on! Probably some flash-in-the-pan reworking of Secret Six that nobody ever heard of.

Is that my sweet Crimson Dawn? Oh! Oh! I bet that's Mockingbird! That's why she doesn't like guys that act like cats!

The guy that was acting like a cat (who I'll start calling "Catman" for short) wakes up in a cell with five other people. So that makes six! Hey! Maybe this is the Secret Six! It's composed of Catman, Crotch Shot, Fairuza Balk, Havana Waller, Big Shot, and The Sexy Mummy. I bet they all have secrets which Mockingbird uses against them to force them to do her bidding. Just like the original Secret Six!

The Secret Six are trapped inside a cube that's also a game and maybe an experiment as well, and maybe a little bit of a coffin too. Hopefully not everything remains a secret for long. How many issues am I going to have to read before I know what the secret is?

Oh stop it! Cats love boxes!

Two locked containers sit in the middle of the cell. The combination to the locks is one-one-one-four which is hIII upside down on a calculator. That's probably a clue! "HIII!" "H" and "I". As in "aitch" and "eye". As in Eee! Tess AITCH EYE Tea! It's a secret code to me! "HIII Gail Simone! HIII!"

One of the containers holds six masks. The other holds the corpse of Agent Robbins. More clues! I wonder if we can figure out the secret yet?

The prisoners introduce themselves to each other and it looks like I was wrong on identifying most of them. Havana is actually a superperson named Porcelain who can make things brittle. Crotch Shot is The Ventriloquist. I didn't recognize her without her murderous pal with the drills for hands. What was his name? Bento? No wait. Ferdie! Big Shot is Damon Wells aka Big Shot. He was easy to guess since Porcy already used his name. He can expand like Bouncing Boy, I guess. Gross. The Sexy Mummy is Strix, of course. I knew that! I could tell by the way she didn't talk.

I see Babs and Dinah never pitched in for a tablet. Assholes.

And finally, Fairuza Balk is Black Alice, grumpy magician that uses backwards magic like old whats-her-name. Atannaz or something.

If the Secret Six cannot answer the question, "What is the secret?", one of them will be killed. And they get to vote on which one that will be! My guess is the others will pick Big Shot because he has a stupid power and because he's a private investigator. Crappy things always happen to P.I.s! It's like the first rule of P.I.ing.

With only a few seconds (and one page) left, nobody has answered "What is the secret?" I guess none of them are fans of Oprah Winfrey. Also, not everybody was introduced! There's still one more team member to go and it's going to be my favorite!

I'm happy to see you, Ferdie!

Secret Six #1 Rating: I guess I'll rank this around ten because I don't even care what the secret is. Nobody can trick me with their dangling carrots! I bet there isn't even any secret at all! The secret is there is no secret, you fools! Unless the secret is really about...no! I don't care! I'm not going to spend my holiday pondering some unguessable secret spawned in the dark, vile heart in Gail Simone's head. I'm just going to go read Justice League 3000 #12 starring Original Blue Beetle and Original Booster Gold now.

Oh! I bet the secret is "I C WATER!" ICY WATER is the secret! Totally nailed it.

Futures End #26

Halfway through this series! Probably!

Sometimes, reading Futures End feels like waiting for my number to be called at the DMV. Let's move it along, people!

My favorite book when I was a single digit old monster was Sam and the Firefly. I think the book was supposed to teach me to be kind or something but I'm pretty sure all it taught me was that chaos was fun. I definitely didn't learn to use my words for good as Gus the Firefly did by the end of the book. The evidence of that failure is this entire blog. While, once again, digging through my bookshelf of old children's books looking for Sam and the Firefly (which I can never find but I keep looking anyway), I found this Golden Book:

"Hey look! A small boy choking on a cork! I should give him the Heimlich and save his life!"

That caption isn't what Brer Rabbit thinks at all! What Brer Rabbit actually does is he says hello, waits for a response, and when the stranger doesn't respond, he punches him in the face. No wonder Brer Fox and Brer Bear wanted to kill him. Brer Rabbit was an asshole!

I didn't scan this cover to talk about Brer Rabbit's horrible social skills though. When I saw the tar baby on the cover, I decided to look up the term "tar baby" to see if it's still in use. I figured if it were still common, it was probably only used by old white men, probably from the south, and it probably indicates they're racist even if they're not using it as a slur at the time! Turns out Republicans still pull it out of their lexicon from time to time. And then they get a bunch of heat for using it and refuse to apologize and it all blows up in their face! So the term "tar baby" has become a tar baby in and of itself!

The term still seems like a useful and viable term to say something very particular, but regarding its popular culture history and the history of this country and the way the term is also used as a racial slur, it's probably a term that politicians should be giving a wide berth. Why do people insist on using words or phrases that are uncomfortable or that have a negative history tied to their usage? You know, words like "retard" or "cunt." Oh. Um. Uh...forget this whole discussion! Let's move on! Nothing to remember or learn from this!

What was I not talking about that I should have been talking about?

This needed to be a full page instead of one tiny little panel because why?

Have comic book readers been so abused by the people seemingly in charge of the entire medium so thoroughly that they simply accept with tired resignation pages like the previous scan of Doctor Yamazake? Who turns the page, sees this, and thinks, "Wow! A scientist standing with his hands in his pockets! Fucking cool!"? Do the majority of fans simply turn to this page, read it, and flip past without feeling completely ripped off? It just feels like the script was one page short so the artist was told to simply take one panel from the end or beginning of one of the pages and blow it up to a full page splash, no matter how boring it is. Can I even call this a splash? Doesn't that term carry the connotation of excitement? Or, at the very least, movement? Where's the kineticism? Where's the vibrancy?

The first panel on the following page extends the width of two pages even though it's just Jason Rusch standing there responding to Doctor Yamazake. So my "One Page Short" theory holds water! These panels could have been planned with less wasted space! If, you know, anybody actually cared about the quality of the product. It's also possible that this page was supposed to create some kind of tension as the reader wonders whose lab access is being revoke by Doctor Yamazake. Except, you know, Jason Rusch was the only other person with access to the lab. So that theory does not hold water!

Jason is kicked from the lab because he's Firestorm which means he's the enemy of Doctor Yamazake! He's one of those arrogant heroes that refuse to share their technology and their power with the rest of the world. They lord it over all mankind from their high-tech mansion in space, emptying their septic tank onto the heads of the masses while laughing and smoking fat cigars from alien civilizations. Now I'm mad at the Justice League too! Fuckers!

Madison wanders into Doctor Yamazake's lab looking for Jason and not to be a guinea pig. But sometimes we don't always get what we want! Or what we need!

I'm going to write an essay called "Women in Teleporters" now!

While Madison Payne becomes Madison Brundlefly (I bet she winds up with super powers! Teleportation powers! AMBUSH BUG POWERS!), Terry McBatman and Plastique plan their next plan of the plan: recruiting Red Robin. That sounds like a stupid plan. And Plastique agrees with me!

You can't stop the future from happening! Dumb dumb!

The reason Terry McBatman can ask Red Robin for help is because there is no trace of Red Robin in the future. So nobody has to worry about a paradox destroying the universe! Whew! That's one less universe destroying thing everybody has to worry about. I bet Red Robin doesn't exist in the future because he's named Harvest in the future and he's a vampire. Y'all thought I forgot about that, didn't you?! It will be revealed soon that I was right! I'M ALWAYS RIGHT!

You know what's really annoying? Brother Eye always says "eye" instead of "I" even though how can anybody fucking tell the difference when he's speaking? From now on, whenever I type "I", realize I'm actually thinking "SexMuffin71". That's two better than "69" so just imagine that, right? RIGHT? Two better!

Brother Eye gives Fifty-Sue a packet of information about her creation. She is test subject 52 and she was created using 52 DNA strands. That means she's, um, let's see, carry the something...three times better than Superboy! I mean, seventeen times better than Superboy! Jesus fuck!

That's become my new swear for when I'm really angry. I mean really angry and not fake angry. It's unconscious. It just steams out of my mouth in a spray of foam and spittle. "JESUS FUCK!" If I could consciously change it, I'd make it "Jesus fucked" so that it becomes a parody of "Jesus wept." But I'm not really in control when my stupid fucking computer takes more than a few seconds to load a webpage! You are supposed to be the future, computer! You are suppose to go at future speeds! Stop acting like an Atari 2600, you piece of shit!

Brother Eye also shows Fifty-Sue that the one person she admires and thinks of as her friend, Slade Wilson, is taking steps to betray her. Well, Christ always needs a Judas. And Slade has been known to enjoy stories with the name "Judas" in them! And my poor, beloved, dear, fifteen year friend whom I lost recently was named Judas! I think that fits somehow.

No! No more mentions of the frog and the scorpion! And now that you guys have told the old woman/snake variant, no more telling that one either! And while we're discussing stuff I don't want to read in my comic books because they've been all over social media for way too fucking long, stop telling that story about the wolf that survives is the one that you feed!

Finally, Batman plays marriage counselor to Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch, telling them to stop bickering, forget their petty problems, and just fucking merge again. The world needs Firestorm! Brother Eye needs Firestorm! I mean, he will need him but nobody probably knows that yet. The world probably would have been better off if Batman had just stayed out of business that doesn't concern him.

Futures End #26 Rating: +1 Ranking. Nobody died but I guess I'm feeling charitable today. I'd better hit "Publish" on this post before I change my mind!

Futures End #19

Power Girl making Slade Wilson Jelly™.

It's kind of nice to take a break from my Goggles Novella with these weekly comics where I can get back to using my other fake voice. That's this one, dumb dumbs! I'm so sick of you readers not paying attention. Take some more Ritalin, jerkos! Also, you heard me correctly. Those Futures End commentaries are a novella. That's probably why you won't find a lot of discussion about the comic books nor will you find a lot of discussion about Tom DeFalco's mother's vagina. Although you probably weren't aware there was a lot of discussion about that in my usual commentaries either. But that's because Tom DeFalco has moved on to who the fuck knows where and who the fuck cares. I certainly don't.

Oh god, I hope he didn't die! If he is dead, I'm sorry for being so cruel in my facetiousness, Tom DeFalco's mother's vagina.

Hey! Did you know that DC Comics was doing this big Futures End event?! It's really raising a lot of money for Dan DiDio's dick transplant. You see, he hasn't been using his brain so he decided to stick a dick in his skull instead. I wonder if he'll pop an eye out when that dick gets an erection?

Hey! Should I have added "guys" to my "heys"? That would make me fit in with all the other cool Tumbld kids, right? I wish they'd let me sit at their Recommended Blogs table. Fucking stuck up assbutts.

Hey! I like that. I'm going to do that in my real life too! Every time I have something to say, I'm going to shout, "Hey!"

Hey! Have you ever heard a kid whining in a grocery store and then begun to whine just like the kid but at an adult volume? I love doing that. I think it annoys people because adults should know better but fuck them. If they don't like it, stay out of public spaces! I didn't want your ears hearing my whines anyway. Stop leeching my soundwaves, you fucking parasites.

Hey! Can you believe The Key and his crew are finally inside Terrifitech? That only took like sixty years or something.

Hey! Don't you hate how people sometimes use extreme exaggeration in place of a joke? It's like, "Ha ha! He said 'sixty years'! As if the comic has been going so long! If only I could make the tears stop! Ha ha!"

Hey! I'm tired of typing "Hey!" so I'm going to stop now.

Hey! One more! For old times sake!

Hey! That was the one more. You didn't think the last one was the one more, did you? That would be stupid because I said, "One more" after saying that other "Hey!" which meant I needed one more from that point on. Dumb dumbs.

Oy! I probably shouldn't call people reading this blog "dumb dumbs," should I? That's rude. I won't apologize for it though because you didn't have to read the words "dumb dumbs." In fact, if you did read those words, you basically called yourself a dumb dumb. You should apologize to yourself.

Now that I feel more like myself, I can point out how Plastique was not doing what she was supposed to be doing. Instead, she was off looking for her cybernetic self from the future. I wonder if Plastique will become Harvest? I'm almost positive that when Plastique finds the cybernetic parts of her future self, they will fuse to her body and create the cybernetic version of herself from the future. That might seem impossible because that would mean that her cybernetic parts exist in a loop of time having never been created. But with a little more intelligent thought than the average dumb dumb has the capacity for, you'd realize that at some point in the future, Plastique's parts need replacing due to their age. One of the scientists who replace the parts will be all, "Why are these parts so run down?" And the other one will be, "Oh, probably because they've been forward and back through time. Kind of like John Locke's compass from Lost. But don't worry. We're going to replace every single part and throw these parts in the incinerator. That way, her parts begin and end here even though it looks like they're caught in an infinite loop of time." "Hunh?" says the third scientist who never understands anything they do but his parents had a lot of influence and got him this job. Basically he wears a lab coat and cashes his checks and stands around looking dumbfounded.

You call your cybernetic future self by whatever pronoun your cybernetic future self wants to go by even if you don't know what that is. But be careful! If you get the pronoun wrong, it is a viable excuse for others to end your career! Or at the very least, to regurgitate that stupid bullshit about apologies and accidentally stepping on toes.

That first scene with Batwing betraying The Key and Coil but not Plastique because he felt sorry for her took up seven whole pages! That might be a record for the length of one scene so far in Futures End.

Meanwhile, Lois Lane is still pondering publishing the secret identity of the new Superman because it's news and you can't sit on news! Plus her advertisers apparently expect major revelations. No, no they don't. They just expect lots and lots of clickthrus!

You know who are the worst people in the world? Those that clickthru ads! Stop encouraging them, you big dumb dumbs! Animated advertisements, pop up ads, ads that move all over the fucking place, ads that pop up on touch screens just when they know you're going to tap the screen...these things are all ruining the fucking internet! Forget the FCC giving companies the right to create a slow lane! Advertisers have already bogged down the entire fucking place!

I don't know. I think the world needs a Batman. But the world can give or take a Superman.

Meanwhile in space, Doctor Raymond Palmer receives a visit from a member of Planetary the Shadow Cabinet. Everybody remember those guys? They're the secret cabal behind Stormwatch. I don't know what they do or why they're needed. I suppose every group needs some kind of secret group that secretly runs their secret group and are secretly run by a secret, secret group themselves. That's just how things go when you're living in a comic book.

Oh! I forgot to mention this: Ray Palmer is being tapped to lead the next incarnation of Stormwatch. Seems like an odd choice since members of Stormwatch are usually really powerful and can do far more than just look smaller.

Later, Deathstroke doesn't die because Fifty Sue saves his life. Whatever deal she struck with Brother Eye keeps him and his machinations (machine nations?) away from her people. Her people are Deathstroke, Grifter, and Twofer Lana Lang. Some more people that might soon become her people are Voodoo and Grifter's sidekick, the Customer. I call him the Customer because he looks like the kind of guy that plays Dungeons and Dragons or Magic the Gathering. I have a friend that used to work for Wizards of the Coast and she always referred to guys who you can tell purchased WotC products as Customers.

Lois's article is terrible journalism. "In fact, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest he's even alive." Ugh. Such poorly written, irresponsible twaddle! She might as well be writing for TMZ or Comicsverse.

Futures End #19 Rating: No change. Why don't those Shadow Lords do more with their super powerful selves? Instead, they have one job: to remind the new members of Stormwatch, when a Stormwatch team is wiped out, that Stormwatch was put together to watch for storms. Especially the Brainiac storm! When does the Fifty Sue One Shot come out so we can learn all about her? Why didn't she get her own Futures End issue? Why is Lois Lane such a money grubbing jerk? I mean, I don't care that she publishes the news that Shazam is actually Superman. But to write a sentence that begins "in fact"? That's the kind of lazy bullshit I would pull! Hey! Maybe I can be the greatest journalist in the world!

Futures End #15

No wonder Brother Eye has to catch all the super heroes. It's a giant Pokéball!

I've been awful lax in my religious studies over the last year or so. Y'all think I'm long winded when I go on about twenty pages of comic books? That's nothing. I've only gotten 46 pages into The Pentateuch (not even out of Genesis yet) and I've already written 258 pages of commentary on it. The majority of it can be found at Lyle's Study Guide for the Literal Interpretation of The Bible for Dumb Dumbs. Although I've only posted 48 of the 57 Chapters I've completed. I think Joseph's time in Egypt began to drag and I stopped reading a while back. Also, I decided to finish Chapter Two of Dwarf Lover. And then I began reading The New 52. So pointing out how bad God is at divinely inspiring writers took a back seat to discussing how bad Scott Lobdell is at comic book scripting. I suppose The New 52 has, at the least, given me more time before I begin commenting on The Koran. My guess is that commentary will be the last thing I ever write since Islamist fundamentalist madmen are generally more dangerous than the lovable, bigoted, sign wielding scamps of Christian fundamentalism.

What I mean to say is that I need to organize my life. I first mistyped "life" as "lie" and isn't that the truthiest truth about existence? Anyway, I need to come up with a timetable to work on different projects. Maybe I can rehire my assistant Pickle Boy to help out. But he's really enjoying his new job at Subway being a Sandwich Artisan. I'm not sure he'll come back to work for me. At least not without a written apology and signed promise to stop with the sexual harassment. Oh Pickle Boy! You're like a heroin filled doughnut! I can't get enough of you and yet you don't actually exist! I mean, you do exist but the heroin filled doughnut doesn't exist. And if it does, it's probably pretty expensive.

If I cut this out and sent it to Pickle Boy, would it be seen as creepy or romantic?

Solid proof that face-masked Superman is not Kal-el because Kal-el would never say "finally" like this. As if Superman has to try hard to do anything so that when he accomplishes the feat, he has to sigh, "Finally!" No, he can do whatever he wants whenever he wants to do it. That means that Welder's Helmet Superman is actually Booster Gold. But then we all knew that as soon as we saw him in his first appearance, didn't we? I mean, I did! But then I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader and I notice stuff like that.

Okay, so I didn't notice the origin of Calendar Man when Batman was beating it into existence. But that's because Calendar Man is a dumb jerk with a stupid villain theme. I get why Calendar Man's name is Julian Day. Makes sense! But I'd have given him the name Jason Djfmamj.

Anyway, back to Booster Gold. He's somehow the new most important person of The New 52 during this Futures End crap. Ever since Justice League International Annual #1 where he met himself and disappeared, I've been waiting for the story behind that meeting. That was the first time Brother Eye was contacted by whomever the ultimate antagonist is in Futures End. Probably The Cancelator since his first appearance was in the final issue of Justice League International. OMAC even does the scream that turns into binary when Booster Gold attacks h...oh my God. Skeets is Brother Eye's New Programmer!

Wait. That can't be right! That was the big secret twist in 52! Kind of. I mean, Mister Mind was ultimately responsible but he used Skeets. I think Brother Eye and the "New Programmer" are just using the Skeets Virus to their advantage! Because when Booster Gold downloaded the Skeets Virus into OMAC, it caused OMAC to do that "ARRRRRR000011100111000!" thing that everybody keeps doing when they're infected by Brother Eye. I still think the "New Programmer" is The Cancelator. He hates comics that don't sell well and wipes them from existence.

See? Nobody can elude Superman for weeks. But eluding Booster Gold? Easy peasy!

Superman speaks with Lois after Rampage escapes. Lois mentions the vision she saw where OMACs were guarding a prison full of super heroes. And then she asks about his mask and why he wears it. But she doesn't ask why he speaks like an adolescent male. You know, an asshole. With his "Yeah, that sucked" and "Your ass is mine" and "Crap!" That's the way that idiot Booster Gold speaks! Unless the person behind the mask is Supergirl. That's my other guess! My final guess is that it's Vampire Tim Drake from the future.

Meanwhile on some planet that seems to be the headquarters of The Cancelator, Amethyst and Hawkman discuss why The Engineer has turned on them.

Something is always controlling her! She's been a huge liability! She desperately needs to update her firewall.

According to the cover, this conversation is going to end badly and Amethyst's face will soon have a new home.

Or maybe the cover is just a representation of Frankenstein's first dream in two hundred years. He dreams about Futures End #0, wakes up, and says, "Um. Whoops?"

Back on Cadmus Island, in the Earth 2 Detention Facilities, Hawkcop has a conversation with her neighbor, Rita. Another prisoner named Loomis pipes up at some point as well. Unless there was a Rita Farr on Earth 2, I don't know who Rita could be. As for Loomis, it might be the silly looking older version of The Prankster! That's probably why they don't show him because his looks aren't modern era comic book appropriate. Rita and Hawkcop mention how Scott Free, being the best escape artist in the MultiOmniverse, comes and goes as he pleases. And just like that, he comes! Or, er, returns with some news.

Growing!?!

Finally some rough beast from an ancient ruin in Malaysia has hitched a ride on a shipping vessel, killed everybody on board, and then proceeded to slouch toward some village in the desert. It's looking for an alien or something. Same alien that John Constantine and Tommy (hopefully Tommy Monaghan, fatter and longer haired but still wearing shades) are pursuing. What alien? I don't know. Long lost Superman?

Futures End #15 Rating: No change. I enjoyed this issue better than some of the previous issues because it spent more time on each scene. And instead of skipping around from scene to scene and back to scene again, it just developed the scene across a few pages and then moved on to the next one. It's much easier to do a commentary when I don't have to keep saying, "Back to Fake Ass Superman..." and shit like that. I hope that Tommy is Hitman who had to go into hiding after the New 52 version of his Preboot series wound down (and he, you know, faked his own death). Plus he has that X-ray vision so he's probably as useful as Cole Cash in spotting Earth Twofers and aliens and semi-erect penises in khakis.

Futures End #8

This commentary is an Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Primer. Highly recommended for newbies and novices.

Another week of Futures End, another week where barely anything happens! I'm predicting that! I haven't actually read it yet. You think I actually read the comic book first and fashion a coherent essay extolling the virtues and exposing the flaws of the comic book? That's fucking silly! And difficult! It's easier to just read a page and then say, "Why don't Deathstroke and Faraday get a room already where Faraday can do that thing he's always wanted to do involving an empty eye socket, his penis, and a bowel movement?"

After such an erudite observation, I type out this next sentence where I hope that I used "erudite" correctly. Then it's on to the next page where Grifter and Fifty Sue are flirting. Then I say, "Why don't Grifter and Fifty Sue get a room already where Chris Hanson can introduce himself and ask Grifter to take a seat." Also, I get to point out how whoever scripted this issue stole my fucking line.

That's verifiable Grunion Guy copyrighted material, that line about Batman and Robin!

I'll continue to read a few more pages while avoiding the "get a room" joke so that I can use it once more at the end to tie the entire thing together. I'm sure the characters I'll be telling to get a room will be Ronnie Raymond and Jason Rusch or Frankenstein and Amethyst.

Back in Lois Lane's office building, I might point out the gigantic fucking watch she wears on her wrist which will probably turn out to be something to summon Superman. Or I might just whine for a bit about how she created a blogging empire while my blog is just a little shitty site on Tumblr with less follows than every high school student in America. Of course, they're all posting nudies and Supernatural gifs while I'm actually taking the time to carefully construct a seemingly rambling and incoherent, often offensive and mildly racist, essay that always has a subtle intellectual subtext and/or secret message to our lizard overlords. Currently Lois is trying to figure out what a bunch of random numbers are on a sheet of paper.

Usually I'll take a moment like this to brag about my past comic book achievements. So the numbers on the paper remind me of DC Challenge when eleven different DC writers and artists wrote a bunch of cliffhanger issues to try to stump the next creative team. Mostly each subsequent creative team ignored what came before and just introduced more and more of their own plot points until the entire story was a sagging, bulging sack of D-list characters running around with no motivations. In the first issue, Batman received a clue as a string of numbers, 51773173. Being a Master Comic Book Reader (even at that young age), I realized instantly that it was the name Eli Ellis when seen backwards in a calculator readout. Of course none of the other writers picked up on this because they were all narcissistic idiots that couldn't give a shit about the story that came before their part. The whole thing was a huge fiasco and I can't wait to dig it out of my long boxes and reread it!

Sure, it's hand to mouth for you Earth 2 chumps whom Lois threatens daily with deportation while she rakes in the big money on porn adverts!

Later Superman appears to Jason Rusch and tells him to kiss and make up with Ronnie Raymond. Normally whenever Firestorm is mentioned, I'll try to point out how the original series, "The Fury of Firestorm, The Nuclear Men," was homosexual erotica masquerading as a patriotic story about defending the world from terrorists. But since Superman has now appeared wearing some kind of facemask, that would trump the Slash Fiction Matrix discussion. His chest is awfully huge as if he were drawn by Rob Liefeld or Superman were actually a woman with some kind of armor to disguise her breasts. And since the chest is so big, it must be Power Girl. Plus his ass isn't adorable enough to be Supergirl's.

Look! Thought balloons! Remember those?!

I've had a long standing continuous rant about Thought Balloons versus Narration Boxes. I'm not going to go into the specifics yet again but I will point out that I read comic books regularly from about 1983 to 2003. It was then that I stopped picking up monthly comic books and only continued reading The Walking Dead and Fables via trades. It wasn't until The New 52 started up that I decided I was going to fulfill a longtime dream of the young kid reading Crisis on Infinite of Earths which was to be able to read every single issue put out by DC Comics. It's also when I noticed some serious things had changed since I last read comic books. The thought balloon was virtually non-existent and had been replaced by first person monologues that were often ambiguous about where in time they fell. Were they the current thoughts of the character or the thoughts of the character later explaining to some unknown audience what had happened? Were they commentary tracks placed on the story which was somehow filmed for later perusal? Is the Narration Box like the dad in How I Met the Woman I Loved Who, By the Way, Was Not Your Mother doing a voice over for his or her kids? I don't know! Some writers definitely don't think it through and just write as if the main characters thoughts are from an omnipotent future viewpoint. It's fucking awful.

Also, I tend to swear a lot and disparage Scott Lobdell and Ann Nocenti.

Still the only dead characters so far in Futures End (not counting #0). Thank God that Hawkman was one of them! Oh, another important tidbit about me: I don't actually believe in God. But I do often thank him and scream at his son when I stub my toe.

Meanwhile in Southeast Asia, some "archaeologists" have discovered a hidden temple that portends evil things for the future. It also houses the creature on the cover which loves to kill stuff. I think its an insane Metron. Or maybe Beowulf!

Here's the temple and all its clues. Obviously it has a heavy Earth 3 theme with some minor Pandora Skull flourishes and what looks like a likeness of the Anti-Monitor destroying everything.

Futures End #8 Rating: +1 Ranking. Okay, nobody died but I still enjoyed it. This final paragraph is where I generally obfuscate how I really felt about the comic book by making some really lame jokes because I'm obviously ready to go play Call of Duty or Culdcept Saga. The +1 Ranking refers to the list on the right hand side of my blog. It's a current list of how I'd rate all the titles in The New 52. It's not very accurate and often doesn't represent how I truly feel because it's not scientific at all. The titles in the list are also links to pages that list links to all the reviews I've done for every issue in every series. Or you can just hit the "Random Page, Anybody" link at the top of the right hand column and peruse some of my past material to see if this is the kind of bullshit you might enjoy from day to day.

P.S. Everybody should reblog this primer so we can convince more people to participate in our super intellectual Disqus discussions that are probably way over most people's heads anyway. Also pretend I remembered to make another "get a room" joke to tie everything together!